Chapter 124: I'm not your woman!

Her deepest fear had come true, and now what was supposed to happen, would happen. She

was ready for everything, but at the moment, she found it most necessary to protect her

loved ones from him.

He could punish her as much as he wanted, but not Amna, Hannan, or Ahmed. They were

the only people in this world whom she trusted. The only family she had. The only people

whom she could claim as her loved ones. Her family.

And she was livid when it came to protecting her people.

"Please let them go. You can punish me as much as you want. I won't say a word, but please

let them go. They don't have any fault."

At this, he stood up, throwing the cigarette away, and began to move toward her.

The fear already started to bubble up as she gulped. Her heart began to pound louder and

louder as he came closer and closer.

"Let them go," she said, but the intensity in her voice was lowered to a whisper. She said it

not to him but more to herself, to assure herself that livid and strong Sheharzaad still

existed within her and that she could fight him. "Let them go," she corrected herself and this

time brought a more threatening manner to her voice, which slightly boosted her

confidence.

As he stood next to her, he leaned down, placing both his hands on either side of the arms of

the chair where a little space was left as her arms were bound there. He brought up his hand

and fixed it underneath her chin to raise her head up so she was looking at him before

settling his hand back again on the arm of the chair.

"Let them go?" he scoffed.

"Yes, please," she innocently stared into his eyes, "you can punish me as much as you want."

He clicked his tongue, shaking his head in the negative. "Don't worry about that," he

whispered. "Now tell me why you did what you did."

"Look," she gulped, "listen... I-I didn't do anything. Somebody is framing me."

"Eh?" he tilted his head. "Framing you for what?"

"That I knew that woman. I don't have any idea who she was, and I-I always... always am

with you at the office. I haven't interacted with anyone, so how would I know her?"

"I never mentioned that, Sheharzaad."

She closed her eyes out of her stupidity before opening them again.

"No. I thought you did," she tried to stand her ground. "I guess you did," she feigned

ignorance.

"Playing with my mind? Is it?" he asked, arching his brow.

"I agreed to being engaged to you, marrying you, I went to meet your family, and I did as

you told me. Then why would I betray you in any way? The real culprit is not me," she tried

to bargain. "I don't know that woman."

"I knew someone who even had children, yet she betrayed, Zaad. So don't play with me with

this part." She could witness a coldness in his eyes.

"I don't know anyone. Trust me," she reiterated, desperate to escape him and his

punishment.

He scoffed, straightened up, and pulled up a video in front of her, playing it on his mobile

phone. Through the installed camera in the lock device outside his room, her face could be

seen when she was entering the code to enter his room. In the next video, she was shown

searching his entire office when her eyes landed on a locker. She opened it, retrieved a file,

and then shut the locker back. Afterward, CCTV footage of a post office was seen where she

was handing over the file to the officer. Then, from one of the packets lying on the table, he

took it and recovered the file along with it, and he presented it to her.

"You know where you exactly fell?" he asked, putting back that file. "When a letter was sent

to you to post the file to a certain address. You failed to notice, in the end, her name,

Khaleda, wasn't mentioned. I never knew she was the spy," he apprised, and her eyes, which

were widened, expanded more. "It was me who had sent the letter to test you. Apart from

that, the call you made from the hotel room to some international number was enough for

me to raise my suspicion, Zaad. It grew more and more when I began to realize it was just

you who had come that day to my office while I was discussing money laundering with that

woman. Afterward, you had also come to get back your phone. So, my little lady," he said in

a whisper, the last part, and held her chin, "I was aware all the time who it was sending

information to intelligence agencies." He broke it to her.

A tear fell from her left eye.

"For future reference, don't diffuse my warnings into thin air, Sheharzaad."

Her mind recalled all the up-heads he had given her all the while. And the last warning he

had made on the phone was enough for her to run away. Her sixth sense was right; he knew

everything.

"You... you acted all the way as if you trusted me, as if you were making me your w-wife,

you-you—" she said more to herself than to him. It was such a big moment of realization for

her. Her life played her bad. Very bad.

With his possession on her chin, he bobbed her head up. "Look me in the eye," he told her,

and she moved her lashes up to stare at him. "I don't trust women," he said, and the intense

waves of his sound made the words root deep in her mind.

He doesn't trust women.

The words repeated in her brain.

He doesn't trust women.

Again.

He doesn't trust women.

Again.

Again and again, they kept on repeating. His eyes had made all the world dim for her. As if it

was just him and her. The words he uttered directly entered her head and buried there,

leaving no room to leave.

They were engraved there, driven by the intensity of his eyes.

"Now tell me," he tightened his grasp on her chin, bringing her out of her mind. "Tell me,

who is Hannan to you?" he almost gritted.

Sheharzaad's face registered confusion. "Why are you asking this?"

"Who is he to you?" he asked, ignoring her question.

The frown deepened as she tried to put two and two together, and slowly, everything

started to make sense as a look of realization came over her face. "What is it to you?" she

asked.

"Answer my damn question, Sheharzaad," he said in a low rumble.

"Now you know everything, then why should I hold back from saying what I feel, felt?" This

time, she stared at him head-to-head. "Why do you care who Hannan is to me?"

"Because any man in my fucking woman's life apart from me is what I take very personally."

"I'm not your woman. Never will be."